Binney probed his memory. He couldn’t get down from the roof. If he materialized two hundred feet above New York, the result would be fatal. Unless—unless something broke his fall. But what could? What—
Water!
“Wow!” Binney said in a heartfelt voice.
Of course! A two-hundred foot drop into water would be dangerous and unpleasant, but not fatal. Especially in Binney’s case. Water was his element. The nearest body of water—on Earth— was the Hudson River.
But how to locate it? How to find the right spot, so that he could get mad, return to Earth, and drop neatly into deep water? There were no landmarks—
There was one. The crescent-shaped plaza. That, to Binney, marked the entrance of the Holland Tunnel. All he had to do was go to the inner curve of the crescent, turn his back, and walk… how far?
How long was the Holland Tunnel?
Binney tried to visualize it, to remember. Abruptly he was seeing himself seated in the bus beside white- haired, talkative Dennler, idly counting the metal doors. One hundred and ninety-five doors. Perhaps a few more. That didn’t matter. But they seemed to be about forty feet apart. That came to—let’s see—about 8,000 feet. If he paced off four thousand feet he’d be approximately in the center of the Hudson River, though, of course, in another world.
That was it! Binney stood up and drew Susan’s limp body across his shoulders. She wasn’t heavy, but Binney wasn’t a heavyweight himself. He staggered toward the edge of the crescent-shaped hole in the roof, peered down, and then turned his back. He began to pace his distance carefully. Two steps — five feet. Ten feet. Fifteen. Twenty....
Sixteen hundred steps later Binney stopped. The bat-wings had followed him at a short distance, piping inquiringly.
“Dree?”
“Urdle dree?"
“Urdle dree nuts,” said Binney, having at last found the spot he desired. If his calculations were correct, he was over the center of the Hudson River, so to speak. He sat down, holding Susan, and proceeded to lash himself into a fury.
Only, now, he couldn’t get mad.
ANY psychologist could have told Binney the reason, but there was none handy. Poor Binney realized that he was now as cool as a cucumber. The gaping, blank faces of the bat-wings no longer roused him to rage.
He called them vile names. He thumbed his nose at them, and invited them to come within his reach. They declined. Still Binney couldn’t get mad.
He pinched the place where Susan had bitten him and tried to rouse himself to frenzy about that. But it was useless. After all, he loved the girl.
He thought of Tim Blake and the catastrophic fight, and almost became furious at the muscular Blake, but then started to chuckle at the look on the man’s face when he was being carried through the air. Where was Blake now? In New York, in his bathing suit.
Binney blessed the lucky forethought that had made Susan and himself change to street garments before being transported into this strange world. Two people in swim-suits clambering out of the Hudson would attract far more attention than a man and a woman who had, apparently, fallen overboard from a ferry.
But such thoughts were futile. Binney groaned. He could let go of Susan, and she’d be transported back to Earth —but she couldn’t swim very well. Unconscious, she’d fall to death. Binney was utterly helpless, he realized. After having figured out a means of escape, he didn’t have enough nerve to get mad.
“You poor spineless cockroach,” said Joe Binney to himself. “You poor miserable imitation of a brainless weak-fish! You can’t even get mad if you want to. Why, you yellow—”
Binney felt a mad inclination to seize himself by the throat and strangle himself. He was suddenly furious with bitter, violent rage at this helpless, stupid person called Joe Binney.
“Urdle dree,” he heard a bat-wing say, and then—
Bang!
The world exploded around Binney. He felt a giddy shock of disorientation. The roof melted away before him. For a second he saw the Hudson River far below, and then he was falling, Susan tightly clasped in his arms.
Quite by accident, Binney had become tremendously angry with himself.
He kept his head, maintaining his own and Susan’s body vertical, struggling for balance and still trying to relax.
Splash! The impact sent the breath from the man’s lungs as they hit the water feet first and shot downward. Susan was jerked out of his arms. He thrashed frantically in chilly water, and then followed up the sash that still bound Susan to him. Having captured the girl, he started swimming upward desperately.
His lungs were bursting by the time his head broke through the surface. To the left were the Palisades of Jersey, to the right, the towering buildings of Manhattan. His guess had been right —his calculations correct.
Panting heavily, almost breathless he swam shoreward. Susan would need some medical attention, but she’d be all right, he felt confident.
TWO days later Joe Binney and Susan sat in the private office of Horton, the boss. Horton’s plump face was beaming.
“So you get that promotion,” he said, “and a raise. I’ve had dozens of new orders come in already. It was marvelous publicity, Joe—marvelous. The papers splashed it all over the front page.”
“There just wasn’t any other news,” Binney said modestly, but Horton waved him to silence.
“Gallant, my boy, gallant! Diving into the Hudson after Susan had fallen from that ferry-boat—you might both have been drowned. It was a master stroke of yours to mention Pinnacle Novelties to the reporters.”
“Oh, Susan did that,” Binney murmured. “In fact, she made up—I mean she explained everything to the reporters.”
Susan surreptitiously pressed Binney’s hand.
“So you are now the branch manager,” Horton observed. “Er—your first duty will be to discharge Mr. Blake.”
Binney’s eyes opened wide. “What? I don’t—”
“Haven’t you read the papers? Well, I don’t suppose you got past the first page. But Blake has disgraced the firm. Made a spectacle of himself. Drunk, no doubt. He was shouting and screaming like a madman.”
A quick glance passed between Susan and Binney.
“B-but what did he do?” Binney asked.
“Got drunk and ran down Forty-Second Street in his bathing suit,” Horton snapped indignantly. “The man must have been mad!”
“Yeah,” said Binney, and hastily escorted Susan out of the office. Safely hidden beside a filing cabinet, he kissed her.
“That was a dream, wasn’t it?” Susan asked, when she drew away. “About that—”
“Sure,” Binney assured her. “Just a dream. Don’t worry about it. It won’t happen again.”
And he sighed deeply, remembering the hours he had spent in a Turkish bath, under the supervision of the Professor, sweating out every last drop of the weird elixir his tissues had absorbed. But it had been worth it. There would be no more excursions into an alien world....
“Urdle dree,” Binney murmured involuntarily.
Susan’s eyes widened. “What?”
“That,” said Mr. Joe Binney, “means I love you.”
“Oh.” Susan smiled, and added softly, “Urdle dree.”
END